Thousands Of Kurds Demonstrate For Release Of Kurdish
Separatist Leader
STRASBOURG, France, Feb 12 (AFP) -
Thousands of Kurds from across Europe demonstrated in this eastern French city
on Saturday to demand the release of Turkey's jailed Kurdish separatist leader
Abdullah Ocalan.
Around 9,000 protestors, according to police -
15,000 according to organisers -- left the square in front of the station in
mid-morning to march on the city's stadium and adjoining car park for a series
of events, including speeches and cultural events scheduled to last until the
end of the afternoon.
Most of the protestors were from Germany,
France, Belgium and Luxembourg.
Hundreds brandished posters and photographs of
the leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), now known as KONGRA-GEL,
and chanted his name or nickname "Apo". Some unfurled banners bearing slogans in
Turkish.
Ocalan is being held in isolation on the island
prison of Imrali in northwest Turkey. His supporters systematically denounce the
conditions of his detention.
Kurds from France, Germany and the Benelux
countries have taken to rallying in Strasbourg to demonstrate around the
anniversary of the date on which Ocalan was arrested. At least 20,000 of them
took to the streets of the city in February 2003 and 2004.
The PKK, which waged a bloody campaign for
self-rule in southeastern Turkey between 1984 and 1999, called off a five-year
unilateral ceasefire with Ankara last June and sporadic fighting has resumed but
with less intensity than before.
